Brgr.Co – Chelsea

Interesting history with this one. BRGR.CO is a franchise that’s Dutch oriented, and yet first established in Lebanon back in 2010 before opening its doors here in the UK. This particular branch has been going since December 2013.

It’s a smart little modern  restaurant with an open kitchen. But what stands out the most with the decor, quite literally in fact, are these bespoke cow heads hanging from the walls, which, their website says, is a “charity concept” that invites both “established artists/designers”, as well as “anyone and everyone”, to design their own. As for those lucky few whose designs do make it on the wall, then these are auctioned off with the proceeds being donated either “to their selected charity and/or to brgr.co’s nominated charity at the time”.

As to the menu, then currently only the chicken is halal while the sausages kosher. They have, however, confirmed that the cooking of the halal and kosher meat is done on a separate grill.

Strawberry, Oreo, Vanilla – £5 each

Bit steep for milk and ice cream! Having said that though, these were very well made being all thick and milky n’all.

The Strawberry though needs a special mention since this was one of the best we’ve had. It had this incredibly sharp and refreshing tangy, strawberry taste to it, perhaps owing to the tartness of the fresh strawberries used. Whatever it was, this was thick and luscious and definitely the star of the show!

Homemade lemonade – £2.75

It is what it is; though be certain to give it a stir beforehand!

Parmesan Truffle Fries – £6.00

These are well cooked fries with plenty of tangy cheese all over. But, quite underwhelming to be honest.

Crunchy Fries – £3.00, Sweet Potato Fries – £4.00, Onion Rings – £3.50

Despite the above, these were all pretty good ranging from the well salted, crunchy fries, to the rustically cooked, sweet and crispy sweet potato fries.

The thick onion rings seem to be coated in semolina, and are, thus, crunchy, non greasy, and fairly tasty.

You’ll be fine with either of these as a choice!

Old Fashioned Mac ‘n’ Cheese, Macaroni in a Creamy Cheese Sauce £5

This good old fashioned Mac ‘n’ Cheese can be had as either regular or spicy. We opted for the regular since we wanted to know what’s so old fashioned about it. The answer is that this is good ol’fashioned, ol’school grub that’s gloriously delicious.

Creamy, perfectly seasoned mac covered with a crunchy and pungently strong cheesy crust. Yes Sir, this is one of the best we’ve had (even the burned bits on the side there were bloody tasty).

But for a fiver, this is a little small for our liking, particularly since we wanted to more! ;)

Falafel BRGR – Special recipe of fava beans and spices sizzled to perfection topped with our homemade herb tahini sauce, tomato, parsley and radish – £7.00

Not the most flavoursome falafel we’ve ever had. In fact, not only was it slightly on the bland side, but also rather dry.

Nonetheless, while its crispy exterior provided a nice textural contrast, the minty garden pea tasting sauce coupled with the vinegary kick from the radish delivered some nice fresh flavours.

As to the Tahini sauce, then it was more herb, with a hint of parsley in the background, than sweet as one would expect of a Tahini sauce.

Chicken Breast Fillet BRGR – Grilled marinated free range chicken, iceberg lettuce, herbs – £8.25

This chicken burger really made us sit up and acknowledge that while we’ve had simple chicken burgers before, we’d never had one this good.

And when we mean simple, we really do mean simple because this was literally a fillet of chicken on a bed of greens. That’s it! ZERO SAUCE!

It wasn’t so much the well made, and semi-crispy brioche bun, nor the fact that the fillet was so tender and succulent, but more to do with how wonderfully well seasoned and marinated it was. In effect, its perfect cooking and its intense flavours were more than sufficient in compensating for a lack of any sauce (never knew we’d ever be saying that). Simply composed, yes, but flavourwise, quite extraordinary.
RECOMMENDED!

The BRGR Hot Dog – £4.75; extra caramelised onions – £1.00

The BRGR Cheese Dog – £5.75

 NOTE: these are kosher hot dogs so completely halal! 

Granted these are fairly standard, but that’s BRGR.CO for you. The sausage was soft and succulent and fairly flavoursome while the bun soft and lightly toasted.

The addition of onions might be worth an extra quid, but only if, in our opinion, they were given longer to cook rather than being lightly sauteed. It would have been nice had these been properly caramelised to give it some textural contrast.

Ketchup and mustard are available by default on every table and we suggest they be used.

Pretty good for what it is, but not something you’d sing and dance about.

Warm Chocolate Brownie – £3.50

Not a bad dessert here. This chocolate brownie was indeed warm, rich, decadent, chocolatey, and chewy in places. It did, however, come across as slightly doughy in texture perhaps owing to the fact that this, like all the desserts served here, aren’t freshly made, but outsourced.

Baked Vanilla Cheese Cake – £3.75

Despite the vanilla taste coming through well, this didn’t have that distinct creamy texture of a well made cheesecake, but instead felt somewhat dry.

In addition, since this has probably been sitting in the fridge for a little too long, the base was fairly stodgy rather than crunchy as it ought to be.

Apple & Banana Crumble – £4.50

This was quite sticky in its overall composition. Alas, the apple cinnamon over powered the barely discernible banana taste.

The problem with this, we suspect, was that since it was simply warmed through, it failed to retain that crunchy, crumbly exterior one would expect of a fresh crumble.

Bronut – £3.50

Conceptually a great idea. In practice, this turned out to be soft and sugary. Average at best.

Overall, the desserts are let down by the plain fact that since they’re all outsourced, they’re merely warmed through before serving. Consequently, they’re not entirely fresh, and that’s evident with the eating.

Tea – £2.00; Latte, Cappuccino – £2.50 each